Robotic OS (Cheatsheet) 

 
Installation 
ROS (Robotic OS) is made to work with Ubuntu. 
Each Ubuntu version has its own ROS: 
● Ubuntu 14.04 → ROS Indigo 
● Ubuntu 16.04 → ROS Kinetic 
● Ubuntu 17.07 → ROS Lunar 
● Ubuntu 18.04 → ROS Melodic 
● Ubuntu 20.04 → ROS Noetic 
 
→ Install ROS using t​ his link​. 
 
ROS has also been released in a ROS 2 version. 
● Ubuntu 16.04 → ROS 2 Crystal 
● Ubuntu 18.04 → ROS 2 Dashing Diademata 
● Ubuntu 20.04 → ROS Foxy Fitzroy 
 
→ Install ROS 2 using t​ his link​. 
 
Architecture 
Once ROS is installed, it uses the following architecture: 

 
● A node is a program: For example, obstacle detection. 
It uses: 
○ A subscriber that receives information: For example, a camera image 
○ A publisher that publishes information: For example, position of an 
obstacle in the image 
● A topic is that the node publishes on. 
● A message is the type of information exchanged between nodes. 
  
ROS Commands - The Essential 
 
MASTER 
Run a master 
● roscore 
 
NODES 
Get list of nodes 
● rosnode list 
 
Get information on a node 
● Rosnode info [node] 
 
TOPICS 
Get list of topics 
● rostopic list 
 
Get information on a topic (subscribers, publishers, …) 
● rostopic info [topic] 
 
Visualize a topic 
● rostopic echo [topic] 
 
MESSAGES 
Get list of messages 
● rosmsg list 
 
Visualize a message structure 
● rosmsg show [message_type] 
 
FILESYSTEM 
Run a Node 
● rosrun [package] [node] 
 
Launch an application 
● roslaunch [package] [launcher] 
 
Build a package 
● catkin_create_pkg 
 
Compile a workspace 
● Catkin_make 
 ROS Commands - What we’ll need 
 
MASTER 
Run a master 
● roscore 
 
Visualize a topic 
● rostopic echo [topic] 
 
MESSAGES 
Visualize a message structure 
● rosmsg show [message_type] 
 
FILESYSTEM 
Play a bag 
● rosbag play 
● rosbag play -l (will play in loop) 
 
Record a bag 
● rosbag record [node] 
● rosbag record -a (will record all topics) 
 
Run a Node 
● rosrun [package] [node] 
 
Run RVIZ 
● rosrun rviz rviz 
 
Run RQT_IMAGE_VIEW 
● rqt_image_view 
 
Show the Graph 
● rosrun rqt_graph rqt_graph 
 
Launch an application 
● roslaunch [package] [launcher] 
 
Build a package 
● catkin_create_pkg 
 
Compile a workspace 
● catkin_make